Running Out Of Prospects? Lead Generation Saves The Day

Do you find it hard to generate prospects? Don’t think you are the only one because most companies do. Good thing there is this thing called lead generation!

Inbound Lead Generation

In inbound call centers, lead generation is the process of a customer showing interest in your business or brand. The interest may be from a referral, an advertisement, events, or a simple Google search. The possible customers or leads could have called, emailed, messaged through social media or live chat about your products and services. It could be a simple question or even a like for one of your posts.

It could also come from the internet through content marketing. According to Forbes, “93 percent of B2B companies say content marketing generates more leads than traditional marketing strategies.” These content marketing strategies can be in a form of social media postings like photos, videos, infographics, or blogs and newsletter.

Purpose of Lead Generation

In marketing, leads are not only for sales but can also be used for list building and e-newsletter list acquisition. But most of the time, they are for sales purposes. The marketing department is concerned with the actual lead generation while the sales team converts those leads into clients.

Outbound Lead Generation

For an outbound lead generation, you are the one who will look for possible customers. You will be the one to reach out to them. In times like this, people might find you annoying because they might be disinterested. The important thing to remember is they have to show at least the slightest of interest for it to be considered a lead.

Ways to Generate Leads

An eMarketer’s 2015 study found out that the most used channel for lead generation is the email with 89 percent. It is followed by content marketing, then search engine and finally events. Meanwhile, for the online lead generation, Marketing land stated in their 2014 study that direct traffic, search engines, and web referrals generate 93 percent of the leads — making them the top channels for the job.

However, these leads will go to waste if the marketing team did not invest in the customer’s data first. It is important to know if the lead they got is quality. Kissmetrics said that 27.3% of each sales rep’s time goes to waste because the data is incorrect.

Moreover, it should be updated every year as it can quickly become inaccurate. MarketingSherpa reported that as years pass by, 25-30 percent of data becomes inaccurate. That results to decrease in conversion and sales.
Hardships in Lead Generation

According to DemandGen, there are many reasons as to why lead generation is not successful. One of them is lack of resources like employees and staff. Another is the funding. Lastly, for 61 percent of B2B marketers, time is still their number one problem when it comes to lead generation.

Remember, there is no such thing as “I don’t have any prospects anymore.” As a business owner, remove that mindset and look for effective ways to generate high quality leads which you could turn into your loyal customers.

Lead generation will definitely be hard if you don’t know how to do it right. Research and planning would save you from failure.

I am a Philippine-certified Electronics and Communications Engineer who serves as the CEO of Magellan Solutions Outsourcing Inc. Magellan Solutions is one of the top call centers/BPO companies in the world that can deliver high-performing operations to businesses of any type and any size.

1 COMMENT

Very good post Fred! Quality lead generation allows companies to target prospects much more efficiently now! Instead of shotgunning your message on a billboard or TV commercial you can target your potential clients so granularly it’s scary! I prefer lead generation from Facebook. 68% of U.S. adults use Facebook and 74% of that group visit Facebook once a day. It’s a no-brainer. Also, Instagram stories are very cheap right now because no one is there. Give those a try!

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